This is the opening screen of a NetBSD install — the first of many textual-based screens to come. We aim to show only the key ones.

Published: May 13, 2009 -- 02:36 GMT (19:36 PDT)

Photo by: Chris Duckett/ZDNet.com.au

Caption by: Chris Duckett

Just because it is a text install, it does not mean that the process has to be unintelligent. Here the installer makes an entirely correct assumption.

Published: May 13, 2009 -- 02:36 GMT (19:36 PDT)

Photo by: Chris Duckett/ZDNet.com.au

Caption by: Chris Duckett

We choose the whole hog.

Our installation instance was running inside of VMware Fusion; we could not get the install CD to boot inside of the rival VirtualBox even though several machines were able to boot from the CD itself.

Published: May 13, 2009 -- 02:36 GMT (19:36 PDT)

Photo by: Chris Duckett/ZDNet.com.au

Caption by: Chris Duckett

Who needs a GUI to show disk partitions?

Published: May 13, 2009 -- 02:36 GMT (19:36 PDT)

Photo by: Chris Duckett/ZDNet.com.au

Caption by: Chris Duckett

Whether textual or graphic, progress bars are a must-have.

Published: May 13, 2009 -- 02:36 GMT (19:36 PDT)

Photo by: Chris Duckett/ZDNet.com.au

Caption by: Chris Duckett

There are no lack of options to grab the installation sets that NetBSD wants.

Published: May 13, 2009 -- 02:36 GMT (19:36 PDT)

Photo by: Chris Duckett/ZDNet.com.au

Caption by: Chris Duckett

And here it is: the progress bar. Otherwise known as "coffee and errands" time.

Published: May 13, 2009 -- 02:36 GMT (19:36 PDT)

Photo by: Chris Duckett/ZDNet.com.au

Caption by: Chris Duckett

Some words of wisdom on using a DES encryption cipher. Interestingly, the Debian project is moving away from SHA1 now.

Published: May 13, 2009 -- 02:36 GMT (19:36 PDT)

Photo by: Chris Duckett/ZDNet.com.au

Caption by: Chris Duckett

This is where BSD gets nice and old-school. No Bash shell for you!

Published: May 13, 2009 -- 02:36 GMT (19:36 PDT)

Photo by: Chris Duckett/ZDNet.com.au

Caption by: Chris Duckett

After completing the install and resetting your machine, this is the boot screen that is presented.

Published: May 13, 2009 -- 02:36 GMT (19:36 PDT)

Photo by: Chris Duckett/ZDNet.com.au

Caption by: Chris Duckett

Nothing is graphical by default in NetBSD. This is the result of the first log-in to NetBSD.

Published: May 13, 2009 -- 02:36 GMT (19:36 PDT)

Photo by: Chris Duckett/ZDNet.com.au

Caption by: Chris Duckett

Here are two lines you will need to install software post-install. The PKG_PATH sets the software repository to download from and pkg_add works as you'd expect rival software management tools like apt_get or yum would.

Published: May 13, 2009 -- 02:36 GMT (19:36 PDT)

Photo by: Chris Duckett/ZDNet.com.au

Caption by: Chris Duckett

After much pain, anguish and gnashing of teeth, we finally can see a standard GNOME desktop.

Published: May 13, 2009 -- 02:36 GMT (19:36 PDT)

Photo by: Chris Duckett/ZDNet.com.au

Caption by: Chris Duckett

Just because it is NetBSD does not mean that software is dated; here we are running GNOME's latest major release.

Installing NetBSD 5.0: Screenshots

The NetBSD Project recently released NetBSD 5.0, the 13th major release of its Unix operating system. If you are not familiar with the BSD mentality, it's a back-to-basics approach. Those familiar with Unix environments will find themselves right at home.

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This is the opening screen of a NetBSD install — the first of many textual-based screens to come. We aim to show only the key ones.